In You I Find Proof
by PrincessButtercup83
Summary: Tiny little Post-Ep for 'The Large Hadron Collision'. *Fluff Warning*


I wrote this the second the episode finished, because I thought for sure the writers had left some footage on the cutting room floor. It's small and there isn't really much to it. Just a fluffy little post-ep for y'all.

Penny slid her empty bowl onto the coffee table and looked miserably over at her couch-mate. He was staring forlornly down at his soup. He sighed and frowned.

"Your soup is going down in temperature by the second there, Sheldon." Her voice came out in a croak and she cleared her throat for the nine hundredth time in the last hour.

He turned his head ninety degrees to glare at her. "You got me sick."

"Oh for God's sake," Penny groaned. "Yes Sheldon, we have established that I got you sick." She tucked her legs underneath herself and wrapped her quilt around herself tighter. She'd asked him earlier for a blanket and had been met with a blank stare and an slow explanation that he might as well, seeing as everything he owned was now likely contaminated. "It seems we are ignoring the fact that you are the one who hugged me," she added in a quieter tone.

"I was merely attempting to show you physical affection in return for what I perceived to be an agreement that I would be accompanying Leonard to Switzerland." He furrowed his brow and carefully lifted a spoonful to his mouth. "Had I known that you were merely lying to me about your intentions, I assure you I never would have thought about touching you."

Penny's head was throbbing, and his insistence on using words that had lots of syllables wasn't helping. She leaned back into the couch. "Shhh," she said softly, hoping it would lull him into silence. She closed her eyes and let her exhaustion over take her. Only Sheldon would think of a way to accuse her of lying that needed seventy words instead of-

"Wait," she said as she opened her eyes with much effort. "You think I was lying about talking to Leonard?"

Sheldon placed his bowl of soup on the end table next to him. "I didn't accuse you of lying about talking to Leonard, Penny. Merely of making it seems as if you intended to talk him into taking me because you understood what it meant to me."

Penny stared at him blankly. "I did." Sheldon snorted derisively. "Sheldon, I did. I told Leonard that he should take you because that Collider thing meant so much more to you than it did to me." She sniffled grossly. "He said you were being a jerk and it didn't matter how much you wanted to go, he was taking me."

"That Collider thing," Sheldon repeated in a disgusted tone. He cleared his throat. "Penny, I think it would be beneficial to everyone if you could schedule out how much longer the rest of us have to wait for the inevitable messy end to your relationship with Leonard."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked as she closed her eyes and curled herself into a ball.

"I haven't the strength to go into it," Sheldon answered, allowing his eyes to drift shut. "And I would need my Powerpoint presentation."

"You have a Powerpoint presentation about why I should break up with Leonard?" Penny asked with raised eyebrows. She resituated herself again, standing to wrap her blanket more firmly around her body. When she landed on the couch again, she found herself pressed against Sheldon's lumpy form. He gave her a dissatisfied look out of the corner of his eye, but said nothing.

"Of course, how else does one clearly make a point?" he countered. "I was saving it in case we had to have a intervention of sorts."

"Try to distract me all you want, Sheldon. This is your fault."

Sheldon turned a confused expression on her. "Your relationship with Leonard can hardly be blamed on me, Penny. I wanted to ignore you from day one."

Penny sighed and narrowed her eyes. "Not…that. But thank you." She blinked slowly, her eyelids feeling heavy. "The whole Switzerland thing. You acted like it was your right to go, tried to force everyone's hand and treated me like I was an idiotic teenager." She gave him a meaningful look. "You deserve to be miserable right now." Penny slouched farther into the couch.

There was silence for a moment.

"I take back my hug," Sheldon announced.

"Yeah, it doesn't work that way."

"Fine," he huffed. "I take back the implications of the hug."

Penny turned her head to look up at him. "What implications?" she asked.

"That I like you," he answered grumpily.

"But you do, Sheldon." She leaned against him.

"False," he stated as he tried to shake her off for a moment. "I am as indifferent to you as I ever was."

"I'm wrapped in a quilt your grandmother made you," Penny pointed out.

"Everything in here is going to need the 'Silkwood' treatment already."

"You like me," Penny sniffled. She laid her head on his shoulder. "You hugged me 'cause you like me."

"I hugged you because I thought you were going to tell Leonard to take me to Geneva," Sheldon corrected from above her. "I was clearly wrong, though."

"You drove me to the hospital when I hurt myself," Penny yawned. "You weren't going to get anything out of that. That doesn't prove you like me?"

"Point," he answered after a beat. "Given the opportunity to go back and do it again, I most likely would simply turn the volume up on the television to the point I could no longer hear you."

"And now you're outright lying," Penny answered with a tired smile. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax against him. "Can we sing 'Soft Kitty'?"

He cleared his throat.

"Soft kitty," Sheldon sang quietly.

"Warm kitty," she continued.

"Little ball of fur," they sang together.

"Happy kitty," she Penny murmured.

"Sleepy kitty," he yawned.

"Purr, purr, purr." He allowed his head to fall gently to the side, resting against the top of hers.

"That proves it," Penny mumbled quietly after a beat of silence.

"I suppose," Sheldon agreed as they drifted off to sleep together.


End file.
